Sevgul Uludag
caramel_cy@yahoo.com
Tel: 00 357 99 966518
00 90 542 853 8436
The day is sunny and nice and we are all excited about what we are going to do… We have been preparing for this meeting for the past week and we all cross our fingers that it would go smooth… Because we all know, deep in our hearts that it would be an emotional day… It is Saturday, the 1st of February 2014…
A Turkish Cypriot friend, author of stories of `missing persons` from Messaoria, a gynaecologist currently practicing is Ankara, is flying in today just for this purpose... My readers would remember his stories that we have published on these pages, the touching stories of Dr. Dervish Ozer, who had been a 10 year old kid in 1974, living through the shock and trauma of war, a bomb falling where they were hiding away from their village, his mother being wounded from her hand and losing some of the fingers of her hand… Little Dervish on that day deciding to become a doctor, the ten year old boy, in order to help his mother. He would keep his promise to his mother, the little ten year old boy and in fact would become a doctor. His mother would be sent to Varosha to Dr. Hadjikakou to be treated and he would treat her so well that she would forever be grateful to the late Dr. Hadjikakou… I would get Dervish in contact with one of the daughters of Dr.
Hadjikakou because Dervish also makes sculptures and he has made a sculpture of Dr. Hadjikakou who had treated her mother so well and he wants to erect this monument as a symbol of friendship, somewhere on the Green Line where both communities can see…
The whole story starts with him actually, the stories he would listen from his elders, the stories he would eavesdrop in coffee shops and he would follow them up, learning details, doing research, going out and speaking with more people as he would grow up. One day he would call me and we would meet and he would share with me what he knew of the area… We would continue to speak through the phone or when he would come for quick visits to Cyprus… He and his family would try to help for me to understand what actually happened in this area back in 1974 and he would also show me possible burial sites, telling me their stories… I would ask him to write these down as stories from his childhood and he would begin writing and I would publish these stories on my daily page in Yeniduzen called `Cyprus: The Untold Stories` and he would be happy and I would be happy and encourage him to write more… I would translate some of those stories and we would publish
them in POLITIS as well, the stories of the 10 year old kid from Ebicho who saw too much for his young age, traumatized by war… As he would write more and more, I would know that the poison of the trauma would go away, at least some of it and he would feel better… Finally I would tell him to prepare his stories and we would help to publish him the book of his stories called `Say hello to him`, stories of war and `missing persons` from Khora Publications in Nicosia in Turkish. Hopefully one day we would have an opportunity to publish all of them in Greek and English as well since these stories are written in such a humanitarian way without taking any sides, only speaking of the feelings of `missing persons` and their close relatives, of days of war through the eyes of a child…
So he would hear the story of the glasses and he would follow it…
In 1974, a Greek Cypriot soldier with a goatee beard would go to Ebicho and seek refuge with two or three UN soldiers there in a house – on the wall had been written `UN`. The village, having come under attack from Greek Cypriot soldiers had been evacuated from the 20th of July 1974 and the Turkish Cypriot villagers would only return on the evening of 14th of August 1974. They would hear of one or two Greek Cypriot soldiers who had taken refuge with the UN inside the village and would go and surround the building and ask the UN soldiers to give the Greek Cypriots to them. During this whole fuss, a jeep with some Turkish soldiers with a Turkish Cypriot driver would appear and one of the Turkish officers from the jeep would kick the door in and would take the Greek Cypriot soldier with the goatee beard and glasses from the house. Someone would hit him in the face and his glasses would fall to the floor. The jeep would take him away and only his glasses
would remain behind.
Someone would pick up the glasses and would give to a Turkish Cypriot from the village whose glasses had been broken when trying to escape the war and he would wear them for many years, being thankful that they fit…
Having learnt the story of the glasses, Dervish would go after more information. Could we find the person to whom these glasses might belong? I would write the story and publish in POLITIS in 2011, together with the photo of the glasses but we would get no response.
Sometimes life works in funny ways so one day, through a friend I would meet Despina who had been looking for information about a Greek Cypriot `missing person`, the husband of the best friend of her mother's. We would start investigating and soon it would be clear that the glasses might in fact belong to him. As Dervish Ozer would come for his book launch, I would arrange for them to meet and talk. Despina would provide a photo of the `missing person` and we would go to the village of Dervish to meet the guy who wore the glasses for many years. Dervish's sister would cook lunch for us and we would sit talking about what had happened in that village. Despina and the family of the `missing person` would provide some photos so Dervish could show in the village to see if it is him. Dervish would go round showing the photo to those who had seen him being taken away from the UN building and they would recognize and confirm that it's him. We would agree
that Despina would tell the wife of the `missing person` about the glasses, prepare her for this and Dervish would come again from Ankara in about a month to meet her and to give her back the glasses.
So off we go to Ebicho, Despina, her mother, her mother's best friend who is the wife of the `missing person`, the brother of the `missing person` to Ebicho to meet Dervish and his family. We have also invited the Permanent Secretary of the UN at the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee, Mr. Florian von König because we want the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee to do further investigation about this `missing person`.
Dervish greets us and we go to his sister's house. Mr. A. who had worn the glasses for some years is there to greet the relatives of the `missing` Greek Cypriot. The meeting is very emotional as the wife of the `missing` Greek Cypriot takes the glasses and opens the box to touch them… This is the first thing, the first news after waiting for exactly 40 years… Both Dervish and Mr. A. explain to her what had happened, me translating to English, Despina translating to Greek so everyone in the living room would understand… Mr. A. would give a gift of `tesbih`, `beads of patience` as we would call in Turkish to the wife of the `missing person`. The family also prepared a letter to the Cyprus Missing Persons' Committee and they give it to Mr. Florian who is also very much touched by this emotional encounter. It is like a scene from a movie but a movie based on reality, not fiction…
Mr. Florian tells the wife of the `missing person` to keep the glasses, a photograph would be enough… His humanity touches our hearts and we thank him for this…
We sit to eat with the family of Dervish and then we go to see his father and mother in their field where they have planted broad beans, broccoli and spring onions… They collect vegetables for us to take back with us… The mother of Dervish, Mrs. Mine cries as she talks about the war to Mr. Florian…
`We have seen pain, we have seen war, that's why we want to help` she says… Having lost two fingers during the bombing, she shows her hand to Mr. Florian saying, `This is nothing, you see, she has lost her husband… Such things should never happen again in Cyprus… That's why we try to help stop this pain and suffering…`
The wife of the Greek Cypriot `missing person` will not sleep, his brother will not sleep, I will not sleep tonight, perhaps Despina too and her mother will not sleep… We will all not sleep since the day has been so powerfully emotional…
We are happy to return something that belonged to a `missing person` but we must not stop there – both Dervish, myself and Despina, we will all work to find out more details about what happened after he was taken away from the UN building and to try to give more answers to the family…
The wife of the `missing person` will keep the glasses, the glasses that found their way to her house after 40 years, the glasses that her beloved husband wore… If this is not some kind of `miracle` of humans working towards peace, I don't know what else is… It is because of Dervish that we managed to get them back to where they belonged – his humanity would stop at nothing, would encounter any obstacles and would work with a human heart to stop the pain of the relatives of `missing persons`, having experienced war at the early age of ten and having seen things that no child should ever see…
I thank Dervish and all who helped the return of the glasses – they all give us a lesson of humanity of how much can be done on this island, if only we care a little bit about each other…
2.2.2014
Photo: The glasses that were returned to the relatives of the Greek Cypriot `missing person` after 40 years...
(*) Article published in the POLITIS newspaper on the 16th of February 2014, Sunday.
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